Redwood City officials took a first step last week in setting boundaries for short-term rentals listed on platforms like Airbnb when they approved a set of regulations for rentals shorter than 30 days.
Requiring homeowners to live in residences where they are offering short-term rentals, limiting the number of days a renter can stay in homes without a host present, prohibiting rentals for special events and collecting transient occupancy taxes from short-term rentals are among the policies officials approved in a 4-0 vote Monday, Jan. 8 in the hopes the rules will balance homeowners’ desires to supplement their income and a need to preserve Redwood City’s housing stock. Councilmembers Alicia Aguirre, Jeff Gee and John Seybert were absent from the meeting.
With 380 active Airbnb hosts in the city, an average guest stay of six days, and 51 percent of such Redwood City listings for the entire home, Assistant City Manager Aaron Aknin acknowledged it and other similar platforms such as HomeAway and VRBO have become increasingly popular in the last five years.
“I think there’s a general recognition that Airbnb and other such services aren’t going away,” he said. “It is a situation where you can put reasonable regulations so it blends in with neighborhoods.”
Aknin said measures like capping unhosted rentals at 120 days, prohibiting homeowners from renting their homes out for special events and requiring hosts to provide on-site parking for their guests were meant to reduce the impact of rentals on neighborhoods, adding that homeowners renting a portion of their homes were not limited in the number of days they could offer those rentals.
Longtime resident Brian Clark reported a number of disturbances related to a home next to his with up to 14 rental listings at a time and a high volume of individuals coming in and out of the home.
“This is really inappropriate commercial use in a residential area,” he said.
Clark advocated for a lower limit on the number of days an unhosted rental can be offered and urged officials to consider how the new polices would be enforced. Aknin said a registration process could help track and enforce residency requirements and limits on the number of days unhosted can be offered, but that neighbors reporting potential issues will also help enforce the new rules.
Though planning commissioners recommended unlimited short-term rentals on accessory dwelling units and discussed whether residency requirements should be applied to duplexes at their Nov. 21 meeting, councilmembers agreed preserving ADUs for longer-term uses would help preserve the city’s housing stock.
Vice Mayor Diane Howard acknowledged officials have long been discussing how to increase the city’s housing stock in various ways, noting conversations with the community that led to the city’s easing of restrictions on accessory dwelling units to provide for additional permitted housing.
“We had these conversations forever and it took a long time for us to get to a point where the community as a whole would buy into us loosening up the regulations,” she said. “I would like to make sure we maintain these accessory dwelling units to be exactly what we designed them to be which was permanent housing.”
Howard also expressed enthusiasm for the $400,000 Aknin estimated would be generated in transient occupancy taxes annually and dedicated to an affordable housing fund. Aknin said the 12 percent tax would be applied on top of what homeowners charge for their rentals and that platforms like Airbnb would collect the taxes and remit them to the city periodically.
Resident Eva Markiewicz expressed concerns about the rules’ potential to overregulate an already heavily regulated regional housing market and prevent some homeowners from tapping into a critical revenue stream helping some to make ends meet.
“This feels like overreaching or overreacting,” she said. “I’m not sure we’re thinking about all the downstream effects.”
Markiewicz wondered if individual cases could be addressed instead of imposing rules on all homeowners using Airbnb in the city and added that she felt seeing visitors from a diverse set of backgrounds in Redwood City contributed to the character of neighborhoods instead of detracting from it.
Councilmembers noted the limit on the number of days unhosted rentals and other rules, such as a limit on the number of listings associated with one home, could be revisited at the end of the year before the rules take effect in 2019. Aknin said a recommended limit on the number of listings would come back to the council when it reviews a second reading of the ordinance in February, and that a year of amnesty could give homeowners time to adjust to the new rules.
(1) comment
A precedent has been set in San Francisco. Airbnb and other booking sites can be regulated by the municipality. It's a very simple process. Anyone who's ever had the house or apartment next door become a de facto hotel understands how disrupting it can be. In addition we are in the midst of a severe housing crisis, folks utilizing private residences as de facto hotels when there are local folks that are working and need a place to live is disgusting.
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